Spurt
mobile development | ux/ui | graphic design | branding
Empowering first-time gardeners and community garden administrators with AI-driven tools for sustainable food production and community engagement.
About
Spurt is a mobile app designed for novice gardeners and community garden leaders, offering intelligent, personalized guidance for growing food successfully. As climate challenges and rising food costs put pressure on households, Spurt helps users connect with local gardening communities and optimize plant growth through tailored advice on weather, soil, and care.
Role
My role in this project involved designing the user experience, interface design, branding, and collaborating on mobile development.
Visit Spurt Prototype
01 approach & process
Defining the Problem
With global food insecurity on the rise, particularly affecting urban communities, Spurt’s goal was to empower individuals by providing tools for sustainable, homegrown food solutions.
User Research & Persona Development
Creating user personas helped align feature priorities with real needs. Katie, our primary persona, represents young adults living independently who want to save on groceries by growing their own food but face challenges like lack of space, gardening knowledge, and Vancouver’s unpredictable weather.
This guided my focus on simplifying plant care guidance, building AI assistance for troubleshooting, and integrating a community-driven knowledge base.
UX Architecture
I mapped out user flows with accessibility and simplicity in mind, focusing on minimizing friction for first-time users. Key paths included: onboarding → setting up ‘Your Garden’ → engaging with AI assistant → connecting with the community.
Branding
Spurt’s visual identity combines natural greens and earth tones with vibrant accent colors to reflect both the organic nature of gardening and the energy of community collaboration.
The earthy base grounds the brand in sustainability, while the bright highlights bring a sense of optimism, growth, and accessibility. This balance positions Spurt as friendly, approachable, and future-facing. This invites new gardeners to engage with confidence.
02 features
FEATURES
1
YOUR GARDEN
A personalized dashboard to manage, track, and celebrate plant growth progress.
2
PLANTAID (AI Assistant)
Meet Chuey, your gardening co-pilot, offering real-time, tailored recommendations to help users troubleshoot problems and optimize care.
3
COMMUNITY GARDEN
An integrated forum for connecting with local growers, sharing advice, and fostering community resilience through gardening.
03 results & reflections
Emotional Design
One of the key takeaways from this project was the value of emotional design in driving engagement. Gardening is deeply personal, and for many users, small wins—like a sprouting seed or thriving plant—carry emotional weight. I leaned into this by designing interactions that felt encouraging and celebratory, such as Chuey's gentle animations and milestone prompts when progress was made.
These micro-interactions weren’t just decorative—they were strategic. By making plant care feel more rewarding, users were more likely to stay motivated and build habits. Emotional cues, playful visuals, and positive reinforcement helped create feedback that felt more like a conversation than an instruction manual.
Overall, this project pushed me to think beyond functionality. It strengthened my ability to design accessible, user-centered tools that also resonate emotionally. I walked away with a deeper understanding of how to bridge utility and empathy—translating abstract challenges like food insecurity and climate anxiety into a product that feels hopeful, personal, and empowering.
